Data and analytics is a game-changer, especially in the restaurant industry. Since almost everything can be tracked these days, restaurant reports provide owners and managers with a ton of interesting operational insights.
Not sure which course of action to take in order to please the crowd? You can find that out with a report. Do you feel one of your staff members is regularly late? There's a report for that as well.
According to Toast’s 2019 Future of the Restaurant Industry Report, a whopping 78% of restaurant owners checked their analytics every day. In the restaurant industry, you can document and report anything and everything, providing restaurant owners with lots of crucial insights to manage and upscale their business.
Businesses that use the power of analytics tend to increase profits by 8% to 10%. However, the most effective restaurant reports go beyond just showcasing successes; they also put a bulb on areas that could use improvement.
In this post, you’ll learn about restaurant reporting, 7 must-have reports, and the best restaurant reporting software, Xenia. So, let’s get started.
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Available for up to 5 users
Premium for $99/month for the first 20 users (with free trial period)
Available on iOS, Android and Web
What Is Restaurant Reporting?
Restaurant reporting is like keeping tabs on important stuff to make sure your restaurant runs smoothly.
In a general sense, the activity involves keeping track of things like how much inventory you have, what's selling the quickest, and how well your staff is doing. It's a way to stay on top of all the important details that keep your restaurant going well.
Where Can You Find Reports for Restaurants?
Restaurant reporting software is the home to your reports about your business.
It helps restaurant owners track, analyze, and manage various corners of their restaurant operations.
Restaurant reporting software typically gathers data from different areas of the restaurant, such as sales, inventory, staff performance, and customer feedback. It then compiles this data into easy-to-understand reports, providing insights that can help in decision-making and overall business management.
Key features of restaurant reporting software include
- Tracking sales trends
- Managing inventory levels
- Monitoring staff performance
- Analyzing customer preferences
- Generating financial reports
The goal is to provide restaurant owners with a comprehensive view of their business. Also, helps them identify strengths, areas for improvement, and growth opportunities.
Try Xenia | The No. 1 Restaurant Reporting Software
Xenia is a powerful and versatile restaurant reporting software suitable for businesses of all sizes.
With a comprehensive suite of features, including checklists, operations templates, restaurant analytics reports, and AI SOP writer, This platform is a reliable choice for managing restaurant operations effectively.
The program also helps you adhere to food standards and regulations such as ISO 22000, HACCP, GMP (Goods Manufacturing Practices) and more.
Features
- Restaurant Operations Templates: Build robust forms, checklists & logs for all your use cases.
- Tasks & Work Orders: Task and work order management for every operation.
- Corrective Actions: Resolve failed inspections and hazards with corrective action workflows.
- Temperature Monitoring: 24/7 temperature monitoring with automated alerts via wireless sensors
- Inspections & Audits: Powerful inspections with smart logic and corrective actions.
- SOP & Al-Powered Writer: Generate operating procedures & policies with Al.
- Chats: Centralize communication for your frontline from team chats to company announcements.
Pricing
- Free Plan: Free forever includes tasks & work orders, template builder, public template library, internal chats, parent assets, and locations.
- Starter Plan: Starting at $99/month for the first 15 users, includes a work calendar view, work reports, template reports, sub-assets, and sub-locations.
- Premium Plan: Starting at $199/month for the first 15 users, includes reporting dashboards, time and cost tracking, template branding, public form submissions, automated templates, and more.
- Custom Plan: You get unlimited users, a dedicated account manager, onboarding and implementation, and integrations.
Feel free to Book a Demo.
Why Is Restaurant Reporting Important?
Below are some benefits of restaurant reporting for your business.
1. Inventory Valuation
Creating regular reports for your restaurant's inventory means keeping a record of all the products and ingredients you currently have and their respective quantities.
The report-making helps you understand the monetary value of the items in your inventory. You can set a target for your sales volume, ensuring that you're not keeping too much money tied up in your pantry. It will keep a steady flow of funds in your business.
2. Making Right Plans
Keeping accurate records helps you figure out the exact amount of ingredients you need to buy.
Regularly updating your restaurant reports is necessary for managing your budget when placing resupply orders.
It ensures that you're spending your money wisely, avoiding unnecessary expenses on bulk discounts for items like cilantro bundles or beef steaks that might end up unused. This practice saves you money in the long run.
3. Monitoring Multiple Locations
Good luck with the success of your restaurant expanding to multiple locations!
However, as the saying goes, with great achievement comes greater responsibility. As you open more doors, maintaining restaurant reports becomes even more crucial.
Having precise sales reports for each restaurant location provides valuable insights into which dishes are bringing in the most revenue.
These reports also highlight less popular items and show you which dishes are preferred in specific locations. With information from reports, you can make informed decisions about promoting certain dishes and deciding which ones to rotate off the menu.
Even if you're just thinking about opening a second location, restaurant reports can be beneficial. Reports for your current location help identify areas for growth.
So, when the time comes to expand, you can use these reports for maximum benefit.
4. Reducing Food Waste
If you buy too many ingredients at the wrong times, you might end up with a lot of wasted food.
Getting rid of unused ingredients not only hurts your profits but also has environmental and financial consequences. Inventory reports can be your savior in reducing food waste.
7 Restaurant Reports For Crucial Insights About Your Restaurant Business
Below are 7 types of must-have reports for restaurants as they provide all crucial insights about your restaurant.
1. Restaurant Sales Report
The sales report includes all the details about how much money your restaurant made on a specific day. It tells you the total number of bills and any discounts given.
If you have multiple branches, the report puts together all the information in one spot. Also, lets you compare sales from all locations.
Having this complete data helps you figure out what works well for each place. You can then make changes to your menu or use specific marketing plans for each branch to improve overall sales.
In a nutshell, the sales report helps you understand how each outlet is doing and lets you make smart decisions to increase sales across the board.
2. Inventory Report
Raw materials are the base for running your restaurant and staff theft is common in inventory, so it's important to keep a close eye on it.
An inventory report should give you detailed information about the starting and ending inventory for each item, and the amount of each item used in a day across all outlets.
The report also includes a Variance Report, which shows the difference between the actual stock used and the ideal stock usage. A 3-5% difference is okay, but anything more suggests possible waste or theft at your restaurant.
Inventory reports help you catch any shady activities happening in the inventory. Since raw material costs are high, you can't afford to overlook your inventory anymore.
3. Menu Performance Reports
Looking into menu performance reports doesn't just give you a better understanding of your business; it also helps you figure out what your customers enjoy at your restaurant.
You can see which items are bringing in the most sales and which ones aren't as popular. With this info, you can make changes to your menu and get rid of things that aren't selling well.
Taking out the items that aren't selling helps you cut down on Food Costs and the expenses of preparing and keeping those items in stock. It's a smart way to improve your overall business performance.
4. Expense Reports
Every day, unexpected expenses pop up, making it necessary to keep track of all your costs, considering the fixed ones.
That way, you can have a budget ready for any situation. So, an expense report should cover things like rent, electricity, phone and wifi bills, water bills, staff salaries, inventory costs, equipment maintenance, event hosting budgets, and miscellaneous expenses, like replacing broken crockery or old tablecloths.
The expense report gives you a full picture of your daily and overall expenses.
Having these reports are important because it helps you manage your budget wisely and pinpoint where you can cut down.
5. CRM Reports
Keeping a complete CRM database is like having all your customer info in one central spot.
Since keeping customers is more important than getting new ones, CRM reports are really useful.
These reports show you details about customer orders when they visited, and how much they spent. It helps you figure out which items sell the best and which ones don't. You can talk to your chef and make changes to your menu. CRM reports also help you target customers who could become regulars.
Using this customer data, you can run loyalty programs or create strong marketing campaigns to keep customers coming back.
6. Outlet Performance Reports
Running multiple restaurant outlets can be tough when it comes to keeping an eye on operations and sales.
Gathering reports from different sources and depending on the restaurant manager for updates can slow down decision-making.
That's why you need a centralized restaurant management system that shows you everything about all your outlets in one place.
When you're checking out reports on how well each outlet is doing, focus on:
- How much each outlet is selling?
- Comparing the performance of different outlets.
Having all detailed information in one place makes it way easier to make smart decisions for your restaurants.
7. Staff Performance Reports
Checking how well your staff is doing is super important for a successful restaurant.
You can set goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each staff member and see how they're doing every week and month.
The reports from the restaurant reporting software help you create these goals. For example, you might set a goal for the kitchen staff to keep food costs under a certain percentage.
For the waiters, you can measure things like the number of tables served and total sales in a week.
These reports give you a clear picture of your restaurant business and help you make data-based decisions.
Staff performance reports give you real-time data, which means you can check them anytime, anywhere, using any device.
Restaurant reporting software lets you control your whole restaurant operations even when you're not physically there.
Restaurant Reporting FAQs
How do you start a restaurant report?
There are 5 steps to create a restaurant report.
Step 1: Keep Snapshots of Daily Operations
Step 2: Manage Sale Cycles
Step 3: Monitor Performance
Step 4: Benchmark Performance Metrics
Step 5: Understand the Market & Create a Report
What is the purpose of the report for a restaurant?
Reports about your restaurant give you a closer look at how well your business is doing. They simplify complicated information, such as payroll and inventory, into easy-to-understand reports. These reports help you make smart decisions for your restaurant.
What is a daily kitchen report?
The Kitchen report shows the menus and ingredients required for a specific date. It's a handy tool for your chef and kitchen team, helping them buy the right amount of food and keep track of what's in the kitchen. Just run this report when you need it.
Streamline Food Safety, Maintenance and Daily Operations with Xenia
Xenia unifies food and beverage operations with tools to standardize, track and measure work across every team, asset and facility.
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Our customers love Xenia's robust use cases including:
Food Safety Management
🌡️ Automatic Temperature Monitoring
Xenia leverages temperature sensors that utilize both Bluetooth and LoRaWAN technology to transmit data reliably to your Xenia account. The monitors work continuously in a range of 40°C to 125°C and an accuracy of +/- 0.4°C. When an temperature deviates from a pre-set acceptable range, management is notified to investigate and resolve.
🔎 Smart Inspection Workflows
Xenia's operations template builder has built in conditional logic into each step. This allows you to trigger actions based on a form response such as creating a corrective action on a failed inspection step, sending a notification to management for out of range meter readings, and much more.
✨ Corrective Actions
Operationalize inspections with fast work order assignment arising from a failed inspection step. All corrective data is stored in the checklist submission for auditing and accountability.
📋 Compliance Reports
View live dashboard summaries of tasks, employee performance, template submissions and more. Filter, organize and export compliance reports to PDF and Excel formats to simplify compliance management.
Maintenance Management
🛠️ Work Orders
Create work orders with associated team, asset, location, priority, category and due date. View live progress reports on each work order, chat with teams, and review resulting template submission, images and notes to improve operations.
🧰 Preventive Maintenance
Create a preventive maintenance calendar to ensure asset uptime is not compromised. Attach images, templates, videos and notes to every task and assign to a team or individual for completion.
📲 QR Codes
Generate and attach QR codes to equipment and facility locations to enable fast and accurate inspections and data logs.
📁 Equipment Work History
View work history for every asset and sub asset in Xenia. Review performance data and enable corrective actions to improve your operation.
Daily Operations
✔️ Checklists & SOPs
Create checklists, SOPs, Inspections and Data Logs to power accountability, training and staff clarity on every task.
📆 Recurring Tasks
Create recurring schedules for review meetings, inspections, cleanings and more.
💪 Team Accountability
Defeat pencil whipping and disorganized responsibility assessments by standardizing operations with Xenia. Track time, collect photos, send messages and ensure high quality work.
📊 Team Performance Reporting
Use Xenia's analytics dashboards to view staff work reports. Filter by asset, location, category or due date and export the report in PDF or Excel
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